The present invention is a method and system for administering a lottery in combination with a pari-mutuel pool.
Lottery games are a common form of gambling in which the winners are determined in some random manner. For example, each player may purchase a ticket with a random sequence of numbers. If that random sequence of numbers, or a portion of that sequence, is selected in a subsequent random drawing or selection of numbers, the player wins a cash amount that may be fixed or may be determined as a percentage of the receipts from tickets for that particular drawing. For another example, instant lottery tickets provide a player the opportunity to win a cash amount (or another prize) without waiting for a subsequent drawing. Specifically, an instant lottery ticket generally includes winning (or losing) numbers or icons that are concealed on the ticket itself. The numbers or icons are typically hidden by a coating. By removing this coating, the player can instantly determine whether or not it is a winning ticket rather than waiting for a subsequent drawing.
Another common form of gambling in pari-mutuel wagering, which is commonly used in connection with horse racing. In pari-mutuel wagering, all wagers (or bets) are collected in a pool. The house take is removed from the pool, and the payoff odds are then calculated by sharing the pool among all winning wagers. Thus, in pari-mutuel wagering, the payout odds go up and down depending on the amount of money wagered on each horse or group of horses. This allows for certain combinations of numbers to pay out more as compared to others. That being said, handicapping a horse race is difficult and is considered a skill, as skilled players place wagers based on past performances of the horses entered. While this is appealing to a certain minority of the public, most people do not understand how to handicap and, therefore, do not become long-term participants in the gambling side of the horse industry.
In short, the public has a clear desire to gamble but prefers games of complete chance like the lottery and slot machines, which are by far the two most profitable versions of gambling in the United States. Therefore, it would be desirable to combine a game of chance with a pari-mutuel pool (such as that associated with horse racing) to achieve a game with more progressive payouts, but without unduly increasing the complexity of the game.